"No. We float safe. It was only her madness that drowned those poor dogs. There is a risk, but there is always a risk, brother. For them it was a good day to die."
"Not for you?"
"Who knows?"
Flynn joined them on the deck, near the top of the companionway that led down into their quarters.
"Pyra's fit to piss steam, friends. Keep well clear of her in this mood. It bodes ill for some poor devil that she..."
The voice interrupted him.
"This has been the worst of days, Outlander Cawdor. Truly the worst. I have lost time. Lost a school of whales. Lost one of my boats that will cost more jack than I can spare." She hesitated. "And five men gone to the long swimming on a single day. Now the Salvationis damaged. She will take time to put to rights." The voice continued calm, but she was inching closer to Ryan, her boots shuffling along the scrubbed deck toward him. Her eyes glittered and her tongue danced out to moisten her lips. The woman's hand tightened and loosened convulsively on the belaying pin, whitening the skin at her knuckles. Her other hand hovered by the butt of the Astra pistol.
"Permission to go below, ma'am?" Johnny Flynn asked, trying to break the woman's mood.
"Go, double-stupe. Go on, thou toothless piece of hulk meat."
"Come on, outlander," the little man urged, tugging at Ryan's wet sleeve.
"I said thou couldst go, Flynn. Notthe outlander."
"Leave it lie, Johnny," Ryan said quietly. He sensed that the woman's mood was on the far edge of sanity and wanted to avoid pushing her to the last, crumbling step.
"Aye, sailor," Quadde agreed. "This bad, bad day can yet be saved. This cursed fog that blinds us about means no hunting until the morrow. Every man has work to do, readying us for the Lantic once more. But I can rest this night. Rest and take myself some pleasure."
The last word was hissed between clenched teeth, stretched out, finally fading into a frighteningly gentle stillness.
"But..." Flynn persisted.
"Leave it," Ryan warned. "No point."
"No point," the woman repeated, slowly drawing the .44 and leveling it at Johnny Flynn's chest. "No point. Thou dost get the point, Flynn. Outlander here gets the point. I"ll get the point. And plenty more. Come here, right close, Cawdor. Hear what I plan for thee. And if thou playest thy part as a man... aye, manfully. Thou mightlive."
Ryan had lived long enough on the razor cut of violence to know what that meant. Whatever happened, Pyra Quadde was going to have him chilled. During the night. Either during or after she'd compelled him to ease her savage temper.
He moved in closer, wondering whether to chop her across the throat now and break her neck. The fog had come around them so thick that he could hardly see from one side of the deck to the other. Very faintly he could hear the sound of surf on rocks, which meant that the shore wasn't that far off.
Ryan wasn't the strongest swimmer in the Deathlands, but he reckoned he could hold his own with most men. The sea was velvet flat. The only threat was the creatures in the water. Compared with Pyra Quadde, they were probably kinder.
Now he could smell her sweat. She was breathing faster, her oilskin jacket thrown open to show the cotton shirt.
"Let me tell thee what we shall do, Outlander Cawdor," she whispered.
Using techniques taught to him by Krysty Wroth, he tried to blank out his hearing and his mind, so that the sweet, bubbling threnody of obscenities dribbled by him.
It worked.
Partly worked.
But it didn't shut out the fingers that crabbed at the front of his breeches, spidering inside and reaching him, fondling him as she breathed her sick desires to him. The muzzle of the Astra was pressed like a small, cold mouth against the side of his neck, holding him still.
Eternities gathered on his brain, layering it in dust. Eventually the voice stopped, and he blinked himself awake.
She laughed throatily. "I know what thou thinkest, outlander. But thy body dost betray thee, does it not?" The muzzle of the blaster was removed from his throat. Without meeting her glance, Ryan reached down and zipped up his pants.
"Leave him be, you bitch!"
Johnny Flynn lost control, pushing Ryan aside to face Pyra Quadde, his fingers knotted into angry fists.
"Fool," she said calmly, clubbing him across the side of the head with her pistol. She dragged him to her by the hair and crushed her knee into his groin, sending him to his knees. She gave him a coldly savage beating, never hitting him hard enough to bring the relief of unconsciousness.
Knowing that a move would bring a .44 slug in the guts, Ryan stepped away, breathing long and slow to keep his own self-control. He knew that if he was going to plunge into the ocean and swim for his life, he would first butcher this bloody-eyed slut.
Flynn swayed from side to side, hands clamped between his thighs. Crimson threads trickled from both ears, masking his face from a dozen swollen cuts. Quadde stepped back a moment to admire her handiwork, measuring the distance. Then she swung her muscular leg in a sweeping arc and cracked open Flynn's nose. More blood gushed out, over his shirt and pants, spilling across the deck. Two more casual backhand swipes with the heavy pistol closed one eye and opened a deep cut at a corner of his mouth.
"There, Flynn," she panted. "A lesson well given and well learned." She raised her voice. "Mr. Ogg? Be thou there?"
"Aye, ma'am."
"This seaman has fouled the clean decks of the Salvation. Have him clean it. I'll be back within the half hour. If I spy a stain on the planking, then I'll have him flogged to death."
"Aye, ma'am." Ogg's voice was gray and gentle, lacking any emotion.
She turned to face Ryan again, half smiling. "I am well in the mood for thee, Outlander Cawdor. Report to my cabin immediately after the evening meal. Do not be late."
She stomped off, leaning on her stick, its tapping vanishing with her into the swirls of fog. Behind her, the tableau remained unchanged: Flynn, sobbing quietly, snuffling blood through his crushed nose and mouth; Ogg, silent, looking out into the wall of mist. And Ryan Cawdor, busy with his thoughts.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The Salvationsat quietly, enveloped in the fog. It cut her off from the world beyond, shrouding her from the sea and the sky. Water dripped in heavy lumps off the canvas and spars. Apart from the work of repairing the storm damage, the hands had been set to lowering two of the remaining whaleboats, leaving them sitting quietly on the flat sea. Donfil told Ryan that he'd heard Walsh say that the great whales sometimes came to the surface in such a fog and could be easily harpooned if a ship had her boats ready.
Once the word spread that Pyra Quadde had picked Ryan Cawdor as her victim, he became an invisible man. Nobody spoke to him. The silence screamed out that he was a dead man. Walking, but dead.
Johnny Flynn washed down the deck, clearing the blood off the white wood before the captain came back to inspect it. He refused Ryan's offer of help with a mute shake of the head, and went below to wash the crusted blood from his bruised face. One eye was completely closed, his nose and one cheekbone obviously broken. He was also concussed.
Ryan and Donfil talked together with a great intensity. The Apache felt that Quadde would use other crew members to enforce Ryan's compliance in her sexually perverse lusts, that they should kill the woman now and make for the shore.
Though the fog would give them an excellent chance of slipping over the side, it also raised an insurmountable problem — it hidthe shore. The shaman had tried to find out from the crew how far away they were and what kind of landing they might have. Opinions ranged from one mile to three, and from sheer cliffs to a sloping beach. The only interesting thing Donfil had learned was that they had sailed along the coast until they were roughly in the area where the redoubt had been. In their quest for the whales they had quartered the ocean, coming in closer to land.